


Philosophy Homework

by SkyHighDisco



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Friendship, Humor, Tis only in hotel bars where man's true nature is shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25885720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/pseuds/SkyHighDisco
Summary: When Richard gets drunk, he gets emotional. When James gets drunk, he turns philosophical. Jeremy is just quieter. Drabble
Relationships: Jeremy Clarkson & Richard Hammond & James May
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Philosophy Homework

Richard is trying his best to keep his eyes open and his head from spiralling down onto the bar counter like a spinning top. He stares at the glass of wine and tries really hard to remember the advice from his brother about which is to be drank first; wine or lager.

In any case, he’s screwed now, seeing how his stomach is largely complaining. For better or worse, James May’s chattering box of a mouth to his left is certainly an effective distraction from stomach unsettlement. However, the only thing it manages to do is tickle his nerves to the edge and the only reason why he hadn’t slapped May in the face already is because he would feel sorry for the bartender if he accidentally vomited over the marble counter. Therefore, along with Jeremy seated to his right, he is forced to listen to the endless blathering.

“I believe the fourth dimension is the ability to exist at more places at once. Neil deGrasse Tyson explained it beautifully on the example of a two-dimensional world with inability to comprehend the third dimension. And then you lift one of those poor guys up and say, look it's your world from above. He'd just die from straining to understand what he's seeing. And then they say we can't yet fully understand black holes, that's because they are the gateways to the fourth dimension. Event horizon. When you see your present, past and future all at once. That's essentially what happens when you die. You are everywhere and everywhen. And you know everything. Fourth dimension is human ultimacy. It's perfection. But we can't reach it because we live in a two-dimensional world waiting for someone to pick us up and say 'look, that's your world, down there'.”

Jeremy has one hand on his head half-covering his eyes. He’s trying to find something, anything, in the outskirts of his mind to distract him from this verbal hell. It doesn’t have to be nice. It can be depressing, it can be frustrating, it can be painful and frightening, but for Pete’s sake, only that he is occupied. But no. His head chose this moment to be empty.

“Do you know what is the perfect example of multiple dimensions?” James looks to his friends.

“No”, Jeremy stretches the response like a chewed gum; tired and miserable.

“Photons.”

“Please don’t”, Richard whines.

“The idea is a thing called ‘superposition’ of atom. It’s a theory that the atom can exist in more places than one. So the equation will have to go by Schrödinger”, James makes a point to pronounce his name correctly, ridiculously, Germanly, “and his cat. If you put it in a box with a radioactive atomic core, assuming the atom of uranium is in a superposition, and it falls apart, the cat is either alive or dead, and you won’t know that until you look inside in which case, the superposition is broken. Same with the photons. They can be lightyears away from each other, but they are still one. Like soulmates. They are connected in some sorcery bloody way I’ve forgotten. But if you physically perceived or acknowledged one of them, the other one somehow knows you’ve seen its soulmate and their connection is broken. You can bloody break the soulmate bond of two photons by just being nosy and looking at it. I mean… imagine if we worked the same way. Like Orpheus and Eurydice. He can’t look back at her or she’ll turn into a boggart.”

Jeremy palms his face and lets it slide down like a giant, heavy, sad rain droplet on a windshield. “What the fuck, May…”

“No, seriously, it’s quantum mechanics, it’s so confusing that Einstein would rather not think about it, so he didn’t. It’s a mystery to physics, astronomy and everything. Like the double-slit experiment, first performed by Thomas Young in 1801. which says that every particle has a wave about it and if you push light particles through two slits, they won’t make two lines on the wall on the other side, they will make a fuzzy, sort of cloudy pattern—”

At this point, Richard completely stopped listening and he slowly turns his head to Jeremy, pleading for help without words because if he opens his mouth, all the wine will explode out and Jeremy probably wouldn’t like getting covered by Hammond’s sick, as entertaining as it would be to watch.

But all Jeremy can offer him is a slight, ‘it’s hopeless’ smile. 

“Mate…” Richard tells James, leaning his cheek on his palm and sighing. “You really don’t have to speak.”

But May ignores him and looks into his glass, then around. “Need more gin.” Gets up.

“No, you really don’t”, Richard tries, but James is already gone.

“If he does manage time travel, he’ll teach Confucius _and_ Buddha”, Jeremy comments, taking a sip of his tonic, watching wearily as May found the barista and clumsily extended him his glass.

__

“He’ll extinguish Ashoka’s Hell”, Hammond agrees. “And then he will convert Ashoka’s ways and make him the greatest Indian emperor in history.”

__

James gets the drink poured, smile growing the more liquid there is, and the other two hold their fingers crossed tightly for him to stay there and bore the barista to death instead.

__

But no. They are not of such luck and as James makes his slow way back, Hammond just panics.

__

“Jeremy”, he says in a hurry, “I love you and take me to bed.”

__

Clarkson blinks. “I know he’s twaddling nonsense, Hammond, but you can be less blunt, he _knows_ he’s lethiferously boring.”

__

“No, _my_ bed, you idiot. Anything but being here, just… I can’t walk…”

__

Jeremy laughs, even more at his friend’s peeved expression that he is being messed about and Clarkson knows it, but then the effort to make a frown becomes too much for his jelly brain and Richard droops limply against his large friend and promptly passes out.

__

Just in time for James to waddle back to his seat, curiously eyeing Richard. “Is he gone already?” He sounds sad and disappointed.

__

“Gone”, Jeremy says, patting Richard on the shoulder twice and then making to stand and carefully hoist him over his shoulder, gritting his teeth at the sharp protesting stab in the lower back at the sudden cargo.

__

“May”, he breathes, wobbly on his feet, too. He needs to be careful on his way up. “I’m done. I’m tired and old and I’m taking this bag of rubbish to his room.”

__

“But I didn’t finish”, James complains.

__

“You’ll finish in the morning”, Jeremy sniffs, adjusting his hold on Hammond, knowing he won't. “I don’t need his vomit over my shoulder.”

__

And he walks out of the bar towards the elevators and he doesn’t get a single spare glance from anybody because everybody except James, it seems, is feeling broody tonight.

__

James looks at his glass. Up at the barman.

__

"Hey", he calls to him, nicking his attention. "Do you know how photons work?"

__

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry, I wrote this in twenty minutes I don't even know what it is.


End file.
